When Less is More: The Case for Teaching Less Math in Schools

[FarCenter]

In an experiment, children who were taught less learned more.
Published on March 18, 2010

In 1929, the superintendent of schools in Ithaca, New York, sent out a challenge to his colleagues in other cities. "What," he asked, "can we drop from the elementary school curriculum?" He complained that over the years new subjects were continuously being added and nothing was being subtracted, with the result that the school day was packed with too many subjects and there was little time to reflect seriously on anything. This was back in the days when people believed that children shouldn't have to spend all of their time at school work--that they needed some time to play, to do chores at home, and to be with their families--so there was reason back then to believe that whenever something new is added to the curriculum something else should be dropped.

One of the recipients of this challenge was L. P. Benezet, superintendent of schools in Manchester, New Hampshire, who responded with this outrageous proposal: We should drop arithmetic! Benezet went on to argue that the time spent on arithmetic in the early grades was wasted effort, or worse. In fact, he wrote: "For some years I had noted that the effect of the early introduction of arithmetic had been to dull and almost chloroform the child's reasoning facilities." All that drill, he claimed, had divorced the whole realm of numbers and arithmetic, in the children's minds, from common sense, with the result that they could do the calculations as taught to them, but didn't understand what they were doing and couldn't apply the calculations to real life problems. He believed that if arithmetic were not taught until later on--preferably not until seventh grade--the kids would learn it with far less effort and greater understanding.<1>

<SNIP>

Benezet followed his outrageous suggestion with an outrageous experiment. He asked the principals and teachers in some of the schools located in the poorest parts of Manchester to drop the third R from the early grades. They would not teach arithmetic--no adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing. He chose schools in the poorest neighborhoods because he knew that if he tried this in the wealthier neighborhoods, where parents were high school or college graduates, the parents would rebel. As a compromise, to appease the principals who were not willing to go as far as he wished, Benezet decided on a plan in which arithmetic would be introduced in sixth grade.

As part of the plan, he asked the teachers of the earlier grades to devote some of the time that they would normally spend on arithmetic to the new third R--recitation. By "recitation" he meant, "speaking the English language." He did "not mean giving back, verbatim, the words of the teacher or the textbook." The children would be asked to talk about topics that interested them--experiences they had had, movies they had seen, or anything that would lead to genuine, lively communication and discussion. This, he thought, would improve their abilities to reason and communicate logically. He also asked the teachers to give their pupils some practice in measuring and counting things, to assure that they would have some practical experience with numbers.

<SNIP>

In sum, Benezet showed that kids who received just one year of arithmetic, in sixth grade, performed at least as well on standard calculations and much better on story problems than kids who had received several years of arithmetic training. This was all the more remarkable because of the fact that those who received just one year of training were from the poorest neighborhoods--the neighborhoods that had previously produced the poorest test results. Why have almost no educators heard of this experiment? Why isn't Benezet now considered to be one of the geniuses of public education? I wonder.

<SNIP> http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-schools

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Really interesting article. Much more at the link.

[BlooInBloo]

1. There's not enough palm in the world for this.

"At the present time it seems clear that we are doing more damage than good by teaching math in elementary schools. Therefore, I'm with Benezet. We should stop teaching it. In my next post--about two weeks from now--I'm going to talk about how kids who don't go to traditional schools learn math with no or very little formal instruction."


Perhaps one day we'll have people who actually know maths involved with discussing math pedagogy. As long as only idiots are involved in that discussion, we'll remain a nation of idiots.

[Imperialism Inc.]

2. Unless I misread it this idea is based on 1 study done nearly a century ago.

Certainly caution would be called for at the very least.

[etherealtruth]

3. I loved math

I still do ... but, what do I know?

[On the Road]

4. I Don't Doubt That Pure Repetition of an Abstract Subject

can diminish kids' desire to learn over time. A better way to improve math learning in elementary school would be to use the Montessori method, which is visual, spatial, tactile, and intuite. Kids not only tend to like math this way, they tend to become good at it.

[Odin2005]

5. Oh Dear, this idea is full of FAIL.

[Toucano]

6. This could have merit.

I would not dismiss it so uniformly.

It isn't a study, just personal anecdotal evidence, but I have been working with some very undereducated Nicaraguans lately. Mostly men who work as laborers. When a new concept is introduced, it amazes me how quickly they pick it up. It is as though their brains have less "congestion" for the new information to get through. Yet the cognition is clearly there.

The same material was frequently a struggle for more educated people I've worked with.

The brain is amazing, truly. It wouldn't surprise me that the more educated students I've had got "programmed" to receive information in a certain way - spoon fed, maybe.

Without that programming, the brains of the undereducated developed a different way of making sense of new information.

In sum, Benezet showed that kids who received just one year of arithmetic, in sixth grade, performed at least as well on standard calculations and much better on story problems than kids who had received several years of arithmetic training. This was all the more remarkable because of the fact that those who received just one year of training were from the poorest neighborhoods--the neighborhoods that had previously produced the poorest test results.